DESPERATE villagers using shovels and bare hands continued to claw through a grim mountain of mud last night in the forlorn hope of finding survivors from a huge landslide.

As many as 2,700 people are feared to have died under a huge landslip that swept down from the hills over a remote Afghan village, leaving their primitive homes under tons of suffocating mud.

For all the frantic work by the survivors and a few dozen police to rescue victims, officials have given up hope of finding anyone alive in the fast-drying, 300ft-high mountain of mud that destroyed the village of Hobo Barak in the isolated north-east of the country.

The death toll rose horrifically when a second torrent of mud hit the village, two hours after the first avalanche, just as survivors had returned to their homes to retrieve possessions and livestock.

Those who escaped were left with only the most basic of tools to help free their loved ones.

One middle-aged man, surveying the scene of devastation, was in tears as he pleaded for outside help: “I call on the government to come and help our people, to take the bodies out.

“We managed to take out only 10 to 15 people, the rest of our villagers here are trapped.”

An elderly woman, her hair covered by a pink shawl, asked: “Seven members of my family were here, four or five of them were killed...I am also half alive, what can I do?”

Last night disaster officials in the Badakhshan region were trying to provide food and shelter for the estimated 4,500 people made homeless by the disaster as well as attempting to retrieve the bodies of the dead.

Badakhshan’s deputy police chief Colonel Abdul Qadeer Sayad admitted: “We have managed to get one excavator into the area, but digging looks hopeless.”

UN officials were facing a real risk of further landslides as they battled to get food, water, emergency shelter and medical aid into the disaster area along poor roads in heavy rains.

Just as the United States has stood with the people of Afghanistan through a difficult decade, we stand ready to help our Afghan partners as they respond to this disaster

Barack Obama

US President Barack Obama yesterday promised help from US forces still based in the country.

He said: “Just as the United States has stood with the people of Afghanistan through a difficult decade, we stand ready to help our Afghan partners as they respond to this disaster, for even as our war there comes to an end this year, our commitment to Afghanistan will endure.”

British charities were among the first on the scene. Save the Children sent five ambulances to the northern eastern mountain village and are planing to distribute blankets and urgently- needed medical aid.

A spokeswoman said: “We are responding on the ground already.

"When it happened we sent five ambulances immediately.

"The concern is that there is a risk of more landslides, and another 250 homes are at immediate risk.”

Mark Bowden, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan, said heavy rain and melting snow led to the flooding which caused the landslide.

He said: “Currently the upper assessment of deaths is 2,700 people, but we are still trying to confirm that.

"We have at least 4,500 people who have been displaced.

“A number of agencies, the government of Afghanistan are on the scene and providing assistance.

"The international forces here have made available a C130 aircraft that will be invaluable in getting food to the area.”

Oxfam’s Afghanistan country director John Watt said: “The immediate needs of more than 1,000 families must urgently be met.

“Providing clean water, food and temporary shelter will be the most urgent priorities.

“Beyond immediate humanitarian needs, the affected communities will need continuing support to rebuild their lives and livelihoods to recover from this tragedy.”